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筵

yán
noun #60,084

Meanings

  1. 1 banquet
  2. 2 feast
  3. 3 bamboo sitting mat

Examples

天下没有不散的筵席。
Tiānxià méiyǒu bú sàn de yánxí.
Even the grandest feast must finally come to an end.
主人摆下丰盛的喜筵款待宾客。
Zhǔrén bǎi xià fēngshèng de xǐ yán kuǎndài bīnkè.
The host laid out a lavish banquet to welcome the guests.

Tips

history
筵 originally meant the bamboo mat people sat on at floor level. Since guests dined seated on mats, it came to mean a banquet, as in 筵席 (feast) and the saying 天下没有不散的筵席 ('no feast lasts forever').

Components

radical
⺮ zhú
bamboo
The bamboo top, since the original 筵 was a woven bamboo sitting mat. It anchors the word in the bamboo-mat origin behind today's 'banquet'.
phonetic
延 yán
to extend; to prolong
Supplies the sound directly: 延 yán gives 筵 its exact reading yán, a clean phonetic match with no tone drift.

Stroke Order

筵 yán